Post-mortem Saddam video hits the web

Dead dictator on hospital stretcher

An Iraqi news site has posted a 27-second clip of a post-execution Saddam Hussein apparently lying on a hospital stretcher, news agencies report.

The footage was seemingly shot on a camera phone, and features one participant pulling back a white shroud covering the former dicatator to reveal his head and neck with the former "unnaturally twisted at a 90 degree angle to his right", as The Guardian puts it. The paper adds: "His left cheek is marked with red blotches, and there is blood on the shroud where it covered his head."

A voice on the video is heard to say: "Hurry up, hurry up. I'm going to count from one to four. One, two ... . Hurry up you're going to get us into a catastrophe." Another voice, presumably that of the cameraman, replies: "Just one second, just one second, Abu Ali. I'm about finished." A third voice adds: "Abu Ali, you take care of this."

The film appeared on a website "known to support Saddam's outlawed Baath Party" under the headline: "A new film of the late immortal martyr, President Saddam Hussein." It is likely to provoke further angry reaction as to the manner of Hussein's execution, especially among the deceased's fellow Sunni Muslims. ®